Hoopa – Forbidden Light – Pokemon Review

aroramage

Pokemon has an interesting habit of picking a single aspect to focus on design-wise. Klefki has keys, Vanillite’s line-up is based around ice cream, and Pidgey is…well, a bird. And then you get to more abstract concepts, and it just becomes more interesting. I mean, how exactly do you personify the power of portals?

Hoopa is a Basic Psychic Pokemon, 80 HP, with a Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, and a Retreat Cost of 1. He’s got two attacks: Psy Bolt which is a 1-for-10 with a coin flip for Paralysis, and Hyperspace Ring, which for the same 1 Energy lets you add 2 Items from your deck to your hand.

Searching specific cards in your deck is always a good thing, and there are a lot of Items in the game that can be searched with this, making Hoopa very useful as early-game set-up. Even at 80 HP, he’s actually not that bad. The main issue might just stem from what Items he can get for a Psychic deck, which let’s be honest, you’re likely running him in one of those more than any other place, since his Hyperspace Ring requires 1 Psychic Energy. So what Items can he grab?

Well for Psychic decks, there’s Mysterious Treasure, which can then discard another card and search out any Psychic Pokemon easy. You might not have a Mysterious Treasure in hand right away, so having Hoopa search it out and then on your next turn using it to search another Pokemon is pretty nice. If you’ve got some kind of Ultra Beast, Beast Ring could be a good grab for later on. Choice Band’s always a good default option. And beyond that, it just depends on the make-up of your deck.

The big drawback to all of this is that this does take up your attack for the turn, so you should be grabbing some really good Items to prepare yourself for further down the line. Maybe Hoopa will see a little play with that in mind though?

Rating

Standard: 3/5 (I feel like he could see play, but just not be too high-impact at the moment)

Expanded: 3.5/5 (it’s really going to depend on what Items are available)

Limited: 2/5 (here in Limited, for instance, he’s fairly weak, considering the limited Items)

Arora Notealus: Hoopa’s got a lot of potential, to be sure. It’s just something that could be overlooked very easily, depending on what’s available. Not every deck will want to use up a turn to grab two Items, but any deck that can afford it will likely run Hoopa to get all the mileage they can!

Side Review: Beast Energy <Prism> – not exactly the card I was talking about before, but related in some way. At the least, it’s seeing play in Buzzwole decks, naturally, since Buzzwole likes having the extra damage buff. Outside of that though, not too many other decks run it – mostly cause not too many other decks play Ultra Beasts. It goes without saying: if you have an Ultra Beast deck, play this card!

Next Time: Kicking it back to an older card from another time!

21times
PokeDeck
Central

Hoopa (FLI 54) swings back around into the meta again, this time from the Forbidden Light expansion set.  This Hoopa, the 2nd in the Sun & Moon era and the third in less than two years, replicates the attack of XY Promo 85 Hyperspace Ring, which for a single  Psychic energy allows you to search your deck for two Item cards and then put them into your hand.

The first thing I’ve got to say about FLI Hoopa: what’s up with this Hoopa?  He’s smiling, happy, ready to eat some doughnuts… what’s up with that? Go to pkmncards.com and go search Hoopa.  Look at all those Hoopas: fierce, powerful, mighty, ready to do battle.  FLI Hoopa, though, he’s like, “Hmm do I take the chocolate one with sprinkles or do I go for the one with pink frosting?  I love the pink frosting, but it kind of looks like half of the frosting’s gone.  Did Ariana Grande come by here recently?  I think I better stick with the sprinkles.”

In all seriousness, the first thing I thought of when I saw Hyperspace Ring was Beast Ring.  Hoopa can go get you two Beast Rings when you can use them.  Hoopa’s perfect for that, and I was indeed able to get and use Beast Rings consistently in 16 matches overall with three different decks.  I did best with Ultra Necrozma GX, going 8 W 4 L, but that’s a lot worse than my Ultra Necrozma Malamar build which I’m 18 W 5 L with this month.  Still, I’m not done tweaking that list, I’ll definitely revisit it in the future and try to perfect it… and it might just turn out to be the best way to play Ultra Necrozma.

Rating

Standard: 2.5 out of 5

Conclusion

The only down side to Hoopa is that it needs Psychic energy to activate Hyperspace Ring.  Hoopa is good for more than just Beast Rings, too.  Elixirs, Choice Bands, Rare Candy, even Double Puzzles, I don’t think people are giving Hoopa enough credit.  If you need a single prize Pokemon to turn a match into a 7 prize game, Hoopa may be a good Pokemon to consider.  I’m also considering it as one of my potential starters post-rotation (obviously only for Psychic decks).  But I would try it, it might surprise you how helpful it is to be able to go grab any two Items you want.